Bush Flips, Flops on Foreign Control of U.S. Troops
During his 2004 State of the Union Address, former Texas Governor George W. Bush stridently refused to place U.S. troops under the control of foreign entities such as the United Nations. “America will never seek a permission slip,” he said in a clear reference to France and other members of the Security Council, “to defend the security of our people.”
Somehow no one seems to have noticed that Bush has not only ceded control of U.S. forces to a foreign nation, but one led by one of the world’s most unstable nations. That’s right: we’re talking about Iraq.
Ever since Paul Bremer fled in the dark of night and the Coalition Provision Authority was dissolved, the interim, unelected regime of President Allawi has–according to U.S. officials–been in charge of military activities against the rising resistance throughout Iraq.
On August 24, the Washington Post reported:
Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S. forces began patrolling the streets of Najaf on Tuesday, establishing their presence as part of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s pledge that the new Iraqi army would take the lead in defeating militiamen loyal to a rebellious Shiite cleric.
Iraqi officers described their operations as having a more prominent role than was described by local U.S. commanders.
“We are not supporting the U.S. Army, we are here to evacuate the shrine of the outlaws,” said Lt. Haider Hussein, a platoon commander of an Iraqi army anti-riot battalion operating in the area, as is an Iraqi commando battalion training for a possible final assault on the mosque.
“The U.S. Army is supporting us,” Hussein said, “because we don’t have new weapons to use in this battle.”
One could argue, if one were an unrepentent defender of Gov. Bush, that since the Iraqi regime is nothing more than a puppet dictatorship installed by the CIA, that the U.S. is merely commanding its own troops via Allawi’s Iraqi middlemen. The trouble with that is that, as Bush claimed on August 9, “Prime Minister Allawi is now in charge of the country.”
